


Strawberries for Molly Hooper

by tepidspongebath



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Strawberries, and the difficulties encountered in acquiring said fruit, with very slight undertones of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepidspongebath/pseuds/tepidspongebath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So the boss needs strawberries,” said Sally.</p><p>“For Molly,” said Anderson. “She’s a nice girl.”</p><p>They exchanged a look. In the space of a few seconds, that look said, <i>The boss hasn’t looked this happy in a long time</i>, and <i>She really is very nice</i>, and, <i>I am rooting for them so hard, I’m already trying to decide what to wear to the wedding</i>.</p><p>“We could get the strawberries for him,” said Donovan slowly. “No, scratch that, I think we should. How many do you think she wants?"</p><p>“I don’t know. A dozen?” Anderson shrugged. “They sell them in those little baskets anyway, so however many is in one of those, I guess. It shouldn’t be too hard.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday - Tuesday: The Quest

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by (and perhaps to some degree - maybe a large one - cannibalized from) the P.G. Wodehouse story _The Knightly Quest of Mervyn_ , which made me smack my forehead, close the book, put it down gently, and laugh for a week.

The night was a good one, as these things went. They had both gotten off work late (hardly unusual, given their professions) so they’d missed the film they’d wanted to see, but dinner had been nice and it hadn’t even mattered that they’d forgotten to make a reservation. Greg knew the restaurant’s owner, and, as he told a guilty-looking Molly while they waited for their food, the crispy fish was completely worth the unfriendly looks from the people who were still waiting in line outside.

He drove her home after that. There was work the next day for both of them, so there were no invitations to come upstairs, not even just to watch reruns of _Downton Abbey_ on the sofa, with Greg keeping a box of Kleenex handy for the bits that made Molly cry. (Greg hadn’t asked her to his flat yet. His ex-wife still hadn’t come by for the rest of her things, and he felt deeply uncomfortable at the thought of taking Molly there while they were still lurking about the place.)

“So I’ll see you Friday then?” said Molly, smiling. Her lipstick wasn’t as red as it had been at that little Christmas party at 221B Baker Street, and Greg thought it suited her better. She looked more comfortable, at any rate, and that was good.

“Yeah, Friday.” He grinned back at her, feeling like a giddy teenager. They had been seeing each other for a couple of months now, and Greg at least was in the happy-giddy, rose-tinted-glasses stage of semi-serious dating. He’d not been in many serious relationships – hardly any, actually, excepting his marriage – and everything seemed new and wonderful. If the right music came on, literally nothing would have stopped him from mooning about her street like a love-struck Freddie Eynsord-Hill. “Unless something comes up, of course.”

“Oh God, I hope not,” said Molly automatically, then she covered her mouth with her small hands when she realized what that sounded like. “No, I didn’t – I meant –”

“I know what you meant,” said Greg gently. “I’m not as thrilled about dead bodies as our mutual acquaintance is” – he’d coined the phrase when he noticed how Molly would titter and blush and look embarrassed at herself when Sherlock came up in conversation (it was, she explained, a crush, _just_ a crush, and a nuisance, and she wished very much that she could turn it on and off like a tap, she’d been trying to beat it for years) – “and I’m in favor of _no_ murders happening this week. This month. _Ever_ , actually, but then I’d be out of a job.” And he rubbed the back of his neck, or rather his scarf, beneath the collar of his coat. “Look, um, I wanted to get you something for – for next time.”

Molly’s cheeks took on a pink tinge that had nothing to do with the cold. “Oh, you don’t have to,” she protested.

“Well, I know I don’t, but I want to do something nice for you.”

“You already do nice things for me.”

“I try to.”

“You _do_ ,” said Molly firmly.

“Okay, well, I wanted to do something else.” Greg waved a hand vaguely at the city of London. “I meant to surprise you with something, but I thought about it, and I didn’t want to get you some stupid knickknack that you’d secretly hate—”

“But I wouldn’t hate it. Whatever it was.”

“That’s because you’re _nice_. But – is there anything you’d like? Anything at all?”

“Oh.” Molly bit her lip as she thought for a bit. “Um. Pens are always useful.”

“ _Pens_?”

“All right, not pens then,” she amended, laughing at the look on his face that had accompanied the mental image of his showing up for their next date carrying a box of biros with a ribbon around it. “What about – oh, I don’t know – strawberries?”

“Strawberries?” Lestrade managed to sound merely quizzical now, instead of incredulous.

“Yes, strawberries,” said Molly, warming to the subject. “I think – yes, I rather like the idea of eating strawberries in the middle of winter. Maybe…snuggled up in front of the fireplace?” And she lowered her eyes sweetly as she made the suggestion.

“All right. Strawberries.” Greg nodded. “I can get you strawberries. Chocolate-covered ones?”

“No, just, you know, ordinary ones. Nothing fancy.”

“And you’re sure about that? Just strawberries?  Nothing more exciting? I could do you a nice dragon fruit if you like. Or a guava. Or a mango.”

Molly laughed again and squeezed his hand. “Strawberries.”

“Okay, then, you’ll have your strawberries.” Greg leaned in and kissed her, softly, on her mouth, which was – contrary to the assertions of some consulting detectives – not too small at all. “Good night, love. See you Friday.”

* * *

“Strawberries?” said Anderson.

“Yep, strawberries.” Greg took the folder from him, opened it, decided that everything was as much in order as it was ever going to be, and closed it again. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from talking about his last date, and, well, they were all friends anyway. “Didn’t want anything else. Expect pens, maybe.”

“ _Pens_?” said Sally Donovan.

“My reaction exactly. Though it’ll be hard enough finding time to get the damn strawberries, with the Amberley court case finally coming up. I still might end up nicking a pen from Supplies.” He raised the folder, smiled at the two of them. “Anyway, I’ve got to take this to the D.C. before he starts shouting for it. Thanks, Anderson.”

And he went off with a definite spring in his step. Sally turned to Anderson, and he recognized the look on her face instantly. They had known each other for years – before either of them had joined the Metropolitan Police, actually – and they were good friends, for the most part, and lovers occasionally, and that only when their judgment was shot to hell, though neither of them said so, to save the other’s feelings. And so he knew that that overtly serious expression Donovan had on meant that she was beginning to hash out the details of a plan.

“So the boss needs strawberries,” she said.

“For Molly,” said Anderson. “She’s a nice girl.”

They exchanged a look. In the space of a few seconds, that look said, _The boss hasn’t looked this happy in a long time,_ and _She really is very nice_ , and, _I am rooting for them so hard, I’m already trying to decide what to wear to the wedding_.

“We _could_ get the strawberries for him,” said Donovan slowly. “No, scratch that, I think we should. How many do you think she wants?”

“I don’t know. A dozen?” Anderson shrugged. “They sell them in those little baskets anyway, so however many is in one of those, I guess. It shouldn’t be too hard.”


	2. Tuesday: Giving Chase

Sally Donovan decided to put her lunch hour to good use. After making sure that Greg wouldn’t be needing anything from her for a while (he was in deep conference with the prosecutor for the Amberley case, trying to figure out how to get the jury to convict _without_ calling Sherlock Holmes to give evidence), she left New Scotland Yard to nip over to the nearest farmers’ market. It was too early in the week to buy Molly Hooper’s strawberries (unless she wanted them to be all manky and horrible by the time she gave them to Greg, which would defeat the point and send it crying for its mother), but she could at least arrange for a box to be delivered on Friday morning, or to be made ready for pickup, if it turned out that people didn’t deliver small, single boxes of fruit.  

It was, she thought, an altogether sound plan, and she’d stick Anderson for half of whatever a decent amount of strawberries cost at this time of year.

Though because it _was_ this time of year, strawberries were proving to be difficult to find. Sally hadn’t expected them to be present in glorious red-with-little-pips profusion, but neither had she expected there to be a dearth of strawberries. An absence. An utter lack. She was about to write it off as a loss and head back to work when a likely looking smudge of red caught her eye.

And, yes, there they were, a small crate of fruit at the corner of the stall she’d just hurried past. They looked like they’d do the trick. In fact, they looked very good indeed, and they continued to look good even as Sally drew closer to ask about the possibility of there being more of the same on Friday. She even began to entertain the thought of getting some for herself, and maybe taking some home to her flatmate as a sort of apology for all the times she’d had to skip her turn to make dinner.

“My purse!”

Sally blinked. There were just some things you couldn’t ignore when you were a copper. The instinct was hardwired into your system somewhere along the way, and she could no more have disregarded “My purse!” in that alarmed and distressed tone than she could have walked away from a cry of “Help!”, “Police!”, or “Murder!” Especially since it was followed by a shrieked “Stop, thief!”

She gave the strawberries one last, longing look, and gave chase.

Fortunately, the purse snatcher was an idiot. If he’d had half a brain, he would have realized that running like that, still holding the purse to his chest and looking over his shoulder every so often, only made him more conspicuous. (Sally could have taught him a thing or two about getting away with theft, but that wouldn’t have been helpful to society, and it would have dredged up that part of her teenage years that only Greg knew about, and only because they’d needed to break into a house quietly to stop a murder from happening.)

Fortunately, the Metropolitan Police Service dress code said that footwear should be strong, serviceable, and fit for the purpose, and, as far as Sally Donovan was concerned, part of that purpose was being able to _run_.  

She caught up with the man as he was about to attempt crossing a busy street to get away from her, and tackled him to the kerb to keep him from getting run over by a bright yellow Ford Fiesta. He was still shouting about police brutality when two constables walking their beat came to help her.

It took the rest of the afternoon to charge the thief, point out that she’d actually saved his life, thank you very much, return the purse to its frantic owner, and explain to an incredulous Greg Lestrade just why she’d gotten tied up in something involving personal theft. To make up for it, she called her flatmate to say that she wouldn’t be home for dinner, and spent most of the evening helping the D.I. wade through the Amberley case file. She had no time to do anything more about strawberries other than think about them wistfully.


	3. Wednesday: The Kindness of Strangers

In hindsight, Anderson knew that he shouldn’t have laughed at Sally Donovan when she told him about her strawberry hunting expedition. To his credit, he _had_ apologized immediately, but that was mostly because she’d crossed her arms and given him that look which said he could look forward to some creative form of vengeance in the near future.

“Oh, so you think you can do better, then?” she’d said, indignant.

“Well, yes.” Anderson tried his best to hide his smile behind his cup of water. “I’ll pick up a box on my way home. Easy.”

That had been enough to make Sally storm off down the corridor. He’d shouted another “Sorry!” after her, but he’d still been laughing.

No, true remorse came later, when he was clocking up the overtime, going over the evidence for the Amberley trial. Again. The prosecutor had insisted, and Lestrade had backed her up. She had even gone so far as to suggest that he shave his beard for the trial, on the grounds that it would make him appear more trustworthy (Lestrade had the good grace not to comment).

“You think my beard might put the jury off?” Anderson had all but shouted.

The prosecutor had shrugged, said something vague about how she’d lost a case because two members of the jury hadn’t trusted the expert witness’s handlebar mustache, repeated her request about the DNA results, and left him to it. Since that was far from the only pressing case he had on his hands, it also meant she was leaving him to another long and possibly thankless night at the lab. Not that he objected. It was part of the job after all, and Philip Anderson was nothing if not completely dedicated to his work. If he was irate and occasionally belligerent while he was at it, well, that was just his way.

It did not help that he couldn’t stop thinking about strawberries. He thought of little strawberry pips as he read a horrific report on Cornish pollen. He remembered ropy strawberry plants while he checked that the cords used to bind a victim had been properly documented in the corresponding paperwork. He was unpleasantly reminded of strawberry jam when he examined crime scene photographs. And he didn’t need any help when he checked in with the coroner and learned that a different victim’s last meal had been steak, potatoes, and strawberry mousse. The DNA samples for the Amberley case were mercifully strawberry free, but reading the report reminded him of Donovan and how she would laugh at him when he turned up the next day.

The fruit was still on his mind when he shuffled, yawning, onto the Tube, so when he spotted the box of strawberries on the lap of the man sitting across from him, Anderson thought he was seeing things. He blinked and looked again.

The man looked like the sort of person who would be played by Sean Connery if his life were to be made the subject of a biopic. Or, if Sean Connery was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts, Albert Finney would have done just as well. And, yes, that really was a box of strawberries on his lap. They were definitely strawberries, and nice, fat, red ones at that. Anderson could see that because the box was transparent plastic, and, going by the lumpy bag of groceries between the man’s feet, he guessed that they’d been plucked out of that for safekeeping during the commute.

Wicked thoughts raced through Anderson’s mind. He could snatch the strawberries when they got to the next stop and make a run for it. He could sit next to him and make conversation so suave and intelligent that the man wouldn’t notice that he’d nicked the strawberries and hidden them in his satchel until it was much too late. He could scream that he was with Health and Safety, and confiscate the strawberries, claiming that they were a public health hazard. Or – and this was the point at which Anderson realized that he just might have been working too hard – he could slip on a mask (he was sure there was a surgical one somewhere in his satchel), threaten the man with his syringe-shaped pen (it looked real enough), take the fruit, and read all about the mysterious masked strawberry thief in the morning papers.

It was just as well that the man was occupied with a crossword puzzle, otherwise he would have seen Anderson staring fixedly at the region of his crotch.

The crossword was giving him trouble, though. He frowned at it, scratched thoughtfully at his temple with the end of his pencil, and gently eased the box of fruit onto the empty seat next to him so that he could rest the paper on his knee and erase a few letters.

Anderson gaped. He went on gaping as the man resumed his crossword _without_ retrieving the strawberries. And he goggled when, precisely at Anderson’s stop, the man leapt up as though he’d been electrocuted and hurried for the doors, taking his crossword puzzle, his pencil, and his shopping. The strawberries were left where they were. Forgotten. Abandoned.

There was no time to think. Anderson snatched up the box, and made his own exit.

He honestly wasn’t sure what he meant to do with the strawberries. It was one thing to think all those strawberry-stealing thoughts, and another thing entirely to act on them, even in so passive a manner. But…

The man was nowhere in sight. Surely nobody could _blame_ him if he kept the strawberries now. It wasn’t as though he could stash them with the Lost Property Office. The universe, Anderson thought, clearly wanted him to have them, and he was not about to argue with the universe. Visions began to dance through his head, of himself triumphantly entering Lestrade’s office and laying the strawberries on his desk like a benevolent god. He was beginning to see himself generously waving away Donovan’s offers to cover half of the cost when the door to the public toilets opened, and the man slouched out, looking morose. Almost tragic. Peter O’Toole could have done it justice.

He slouched tragically towards the exit, and Anderson followed, catching up with him just before the escalators in spite of the way he was dragging his feet.

“Excuse me,” he heard himself say. “You left these on the train.” And he saw his hand hold out the box, heard the man thanking him profusely as he took it back, and, in that moment, he hated himself for not being just a tiny bit more of a bastard.

“It’s our anniversary,” the man explained, beaming like anything. “Fifty-one years tomorrow, and I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t have strawberries for Clarice in the morning. I’d given these up for lost,” he went on, carefully putting the strawberries in the bag with the rest of his shopping. “Thank God for the kindness of strangers!”

And Philip Anderson cursed his luck the rest of the way home.


	4. Thursday: Hurried Whispers

Detective Inspector Dimmock would have had to be an idiot of exceptional thickness and density not to notice what his colleagues thought of him. And he would have had to be as deaf as a particularly obtuse post not to hear what people said when his back was not quite turned.

Dimmock was neither of those things. That was why he’d made detective inspector at his age, and why he knew that a lot of the others at New Scotland Yard seemed to think that he’d made detective inspector at his age through sheer dumb luck and, perhaps, a serious error in judgment somewhere in the upper strata of the Met. They did not, he felt, appreciate the fact that he had gotten where he was through hard work, perseverance, a keen understanding of the criminal mind, and, more recently, the judicious use of a consulting detective. For instance, Hopkins ignored him, Gregson sneered, and Lestrade was nice in an exasperatedly paternal manner, rather as if Dimmock were a distant nephew he was teaching to ride a bike, which was, in some ways, worse than the sneering. (If his grasp of office politics had been as keen as his knowledge of the common London murderer, Dimmock might have realized that most people were actually waiting for him to get his head out of his arse and stop acting as though he was God’s gift to law enforcement, but you can’t be good at everything.)

So, between one thing and the next, Dimmock had learned not to pay too much attention to what was being said around the office. Eavesdropping, he believed, rarely did anyone any good. He kept his head down, and did his best to ignore any conversations about him in his immediate vicinity.

But it wasn’t always easy to do that. Currently, he was trying not to notice how Sergeant Donovan from Lestrade’s team and Anderson, who he had borrowed a couple of times to do forensics, kept sneaking glances at him while they talked in hurried whispers by the water cooler. They had been at it for a full 10 minutes already, and had only moved a bit to the side when thirsty coppers began to harrumph at them for blocking the water supply.

It finally became too much when Anderson looked right at him after pretending to stare at the door to Gregson’s office. Dimmock wasn’t going to stand for it. He picked up his mug, and headed for the water cooler.

“…kidding, right?” Donovan was saying. “You might as well slip him a flavored daiquiri, and have done with it.”

“What was that?” he asked, doing his best to project insouciance as he fiddled with the little taps.

“Nothing.” They both said it at once, a little too quickly, with Donovan sounding waspish, and Anderson being witheringly superior (to be fair, though, ‘witheringly superior’ seemed to be Anderson’s default state, so it was hard to hold that against him).

“Right.” Dimmock took a careful sip from his mug. If they’d been murder suspects, he’d have had them in interrogation rooms faster than blinking. They were obviously hiding something, but, thought Dimmock as he began to come back to his senses, it was probably none of his business. He turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Donovan. “Would you know where to get fresh strawberries this time of year?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he bristled. “I’m allergic to them.”

That statement failed to give the entire picture. He broke out in the most extraordinary hives if he so much as _touched_ the blasted fruit. He’d been told that the ones on his face spelled out a rude word if you looked at them from a certain angle, but he’d never been able to see if that was true or not because his eyelids swelled shut whenever it happened. This was not as secret as Dimmock would have liked: last year, somebody had thought it would be funny to take a video when he’d been given a strawberry daiquiri by mistake, and that same somebody had thought it would be _hilarious_ to share it with the rest of the bloody police force. Considering all the evidence, Dimmock came to the conclusion that the video must be making the rounds again. _Damn._

If there had been a way to ask _Are you making fun of me?_ without sounding like he was rising to the bait, he would have done it. Instead, he settled for drawing himself up, looking sternly from one carefully nonplussed face to the other, and stalking off in the opposite direction.

“What’s his problem?” asked Donovan, staring after him.

“No idea,” said Anderson. “Anyway, can’t we make do with strawberry cream chocolates? It’ll be better than nothing.”

“For the last time, _no_. Now act normal – the boss just left Gregson’s office, he’s coming this way.”


	5. Friday: Triumph! (Of a Sort)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the best of all, oddly enough, was the last one in the basket.

“Look what I’ve got!”

Sally Donovan hissed in annoyance. Normally, she was prepared to give Anderson the time of day and then some, but the man had truly awful timing.

“What?” she snapped. “The boss’s press conference starts in two minutes, and if I’m not there, he’ll kill the woman from the _Daily Mail_ , you know he will.”

“Look,” said Anderson again, and he shoved a cling-wrapped parcel under Donovan’s nose with the aplomb of a street magician producing a pigeon from his sleeve. And it might as well have been a magic trick for the effect it had on his audience of one: Donovan’s eyes went wide and she reached for the parcel as though she needed to touch it to make sure it was really there, for, against all hope, Anderson was holding a box of strawberries.

“That’s _amazing,_ ” she said, taking the box, peering at the contents intently ( _yes, definitely strawberries_ ), and handing them back as though she was afraid they might turn into something else out of Anderson’s grasp. “Where did you get them?”

“My wife bought them yesterday,” he said, practically cradling the box to his chest. “I, er, told her I needed them for work, and she let me have them on the condition that I bring home Chinese for dinner. I didn’t ask where she found them.”

“Great. That’s great.” Donovan started to move down the corridor again, and Anderson shuffled along in her wake. “Just hang on to them until the boss finishes his press conference, okay? God knows he’ll need cheering up afterwards. We shouldn’t be long – twenty minutes tops. Meet us in his office.”

“His office? But –”

“Twenty minutes!” she called over her shoulder as she bolted for the lifts.

Anderson frowned and looked at his watch. Twenty minutes, he thought, was a rather awkward slice of time. There were things he had to do, of course (being on one of the forensics teams of New Scotland Yard meant that his life was a never-ending march of Things To Do, often Urgently with Life-or-Death Consequences), but there was nothing he could get done in twenty minutes. He could perhaps go back to the lab, but he’d only have enough time to hide the strawberries somewhere safe (because coppers could be right bastards when it came to other coppers’ food) and move reagent bottles around on the bench before he had to retrieve the fruit and head down to Lestrade’s office.

That wouldn’t do.

Very briefly, Anderson considered leaving the matter until later, after he’d managed to get some actual work done, but in addition to being a never-ending march of Things To Do, a policeman’s life was full of Uncertainty. He could very easily miss Lestrade if either of them was called away, for any reason.

That wouldn’t do _at all_.            

No, a far better course of action would be to wait in Lestrade’s office. Anderson reasoned that he would get more done if he stayed in one place with a bunch of case files than if he flitted from place to place like an overzealous dandelion seed in a strong wind. Also, he’d be able to keep a better eye on the strawberries. He’d had more trouble persuading his wife to give them to him than he’d like to admit (Chinese for dinner was the least of it, and negotiations were still ongoing), and he was going to guard them with his life. In fact, as he settled down to wait in one of the visitor’s chairs, he was entertaining thoughts of shadowing Lestrade to make sure that the fruit actually reached Molly Hooper. Although Anderson had only the highest respect for Lestrade’s police work, he wouldn’t put it past the man to leave the strawberries in the office, or the car, or, God forbid, the lavatory, and then all his hard work would have been for naught. Although...

Anderson peered at the box he’d placed strategically on Lestrade’s desk. The longer he looked at the fruit (and he had a long time to look as Donovan and the boss were _not_ back yet, despite the fact that the twenty stipulated minutes were up and they were well into stoppage time), the less satisfactory they seemed to be. Now that he was seeing them without delight in their mere _existence_ to blind him, he couldn’t help noticing that they were actually an unhealthy shade of whitish pink. Not to put too fine a point on it, they looked positively anaemic. If they had been people, Anderson would have suspected them of having just come through a long, lingering illness – possibly something that had involved blood-letting by means of leeches.     

Not that it mattered. Molly Hooper wanted strawberries, didn’t she? Well, _these_ were definitely strawberries. The genuine article. Fruit of _Fragaria ananassa_ or a related species, and never mind the fact that they wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests with that complexion.

“I wonder if they have any flavor at all,” said Anderson to himself as he picked up the box.

The first one didn’t. It was unpleasantly like biting into a watery sponge, and the second one wasn’t much better. The third had a mild, diluted taste to it, nothing to write home about, but the fifth was quite juicy, and the eighth was rather nice. And the best of all, oddly enough, was the last one in the basket.

He was just finishing it when Donovan burst into the room, looking harried and explaining that Gregson had been far too keen to talk about the Hampson case during his turn at the microphone, the press far too eager for details now that the Amberley case was going to court, and the boss far too eager to get away to meet some bloke who was waiting for him in the lobby. She stopped dead when she saw Anderson, his sticky fingers, and the conspicuously empty basket on his lap.

“ _Anderson_!” she said. She seemed unable to speak further. Her look, however, was very eloquent. It told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was an idiot, a clot, a blight and a stain on the entirety of human existence, incontrovertible proof that human evolution had not yet reached its peak, and, furthermore, that he lowered the IQ of the whole gene pool. It would have given Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

The thing was, though, Anderson didn’t think he was in a position to disagree.

He was still spluttering an apology when Lestrade waltzed – yes, _waltzed_ – into the office, whistling – literally _whistling_ – a happy tune and carrying a box of strawberries. Actual strawberries.

It was a rather larger box than the one Anderson was holding, and they were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, better strawberries. They were in the very pink (or rather, red) of health. If those strawberries had ever had a lingering illness, they were in remission now and could look forward to a long and happy life – or at least as long a life as a strawberry on its way to being eaten could expect.

“Where did you get those?” asked Donovan, in the sort of hushed tones people usually reserved for deathbeds. Anderson hid his empty basket behind his back.

“I asked Sherlock, didn’t I?” Lestrade dropped the box onto his desk with a thump that made Anderson wince. “I figured that if anyone knew how to get strawberries in the middle of winter, it’d be him, and seeing as he owes me one...anyway, remember Henry Knight?”

“The one from ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’?” said Anderson, unable to help himself.

“Yeah, him. Apparently, he grows out-of-season strawberries as a hobby. Wins prizes for them too.” Lestrade sank onto his chair with a grateful sigh. “Sherlock gave me his number – or maybe John did, with Sherlock’s phone – and I asked him if I could order some. It turned out he was coming up to London today to do his Christmas shopping, so he brought a box with him and wouldn’t even let me pay for it – said to consider it a thank you. Happy endings all around.”

He beamed at the two of them.  They were considerably less enthusiastic about his good fortune (Donovan was dumbfounded and Anderson, for some reason, looked like he was about to smash something against the wall, possibly whatever it was he was holding behind him), but then it was _his_ date. He couldn’t expect them to share in his joy at not having to present Molly with a ballpoint pen as a prelude to a romantic evening.

“That’s...nice,” said Donovan uncertainly.

“Nice,” echoed Anderson with horrible forced joviality. Lestrade had the distinct impression that Sally had just stepped on his toes.

“Very nice,” he agreed, leaning back in his seat. “Now, Donovan, aren’t you supposed to be following up on that fingerprint analysis? And, Anderson, the CP wants you again for witness prep – and she still wants you to lose the beard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That didn't take me long at all, did it? *guilty look*
> 
> But please take this as proof that I am slowly chipping away at my giant pile WiP's!


End file.
